give
them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other.
This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution
professing to give instruction in all useful sciences. I think the
invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid intentions,
and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by bringing the sects
together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall
soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and
make the general religion, a religion of peace, reason, and morality.

The time of opening our University is still as uncertain as ever. All
the pavilions, boarding-houses, and dormitories are done. Nothing is
now wanting but the central building for a library and other general
purposes. For this we have no funds, and the last legislature refused
all aid. We have better hopes of the next. But all is uncertain. I have
heard with regret of disturbances on the part of the students in your
seminary. The article of discipline is the most difficult in American
education. Premature ideas of independence, too little repressed by
parents, beget a spirit of insubordination, which is the great obstacle
to science with us, and a principal cause of its decay since the
Revolution. I look to it with dismay in our institution, as a breaker
ahead, which I am far from being confident we shall be able to weather.
The advance of age, and tardy pace of the public patronage, may probably
spare me the pain of witnessing consequences.

I salute you with constant friendship and respect.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CLXVIII.--TO JAMES SMITH, December 8, 1822

TO JAMES SMITH.

Monticello, December 8, 1822.

Sir,

I have to thank you for your pamphlets on the subject of Unitarianism,
and to express my gratification with your efforts for the revival of
primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical fact is better
established, than that the doctrine of one God, pure and uncompounded,
was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was amoung the
efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the
ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was
the unity of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by the
force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded at the
will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like
another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its bi